


Asbestosis

by inbox



Series: In The End [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 19:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3861676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The art of death and dying. Tumblr fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asbestosis

Jacobstown still wasn’t much more of a spit of a town than it had been twenty years ago. There’s a small garden now and a proper pen for the Bighorners, and someone’s fixed the lights along the garden path. These days the supermutants cut timber high above the snowline and trade it for supplies and security, flour for bread and whisky for the cold nights and enough gas for their generator to keep the lights on. Courier likes it here. It’s peaceful. It’s a fine place to die.

He found out about the asbestosis not long after his fiftieth birthday.  _Too long spent in power armor_ , said the Followers doctor back in NCR city, and folded away his x-rays for the last time. Dark spots hung across his lungs like a mourning garland, bigger and bigger every time they lit up his chest in the AutoDoc.  _Nasty stuff. It frays off the linings, then it gets into the respirators, and then it gets into you._  They told him to pack his satchel and find somewhere where the air was cool and put his feet up and wait it out. Two years, three years max.

These days he spends his time sitting on the balcony in a chair made for a supermutant, dressed in a moth-eaten old parka that reaches his knees. Marcus doesn’t tolerate a freeloader even if you were some so-called saviour of the Mojave twenty years ago, so he pays his way with whatever skills he’s got left. He might not be able to take a deep breath without clutching his chest, or take a flight of stairs without a hand hard on his sternum and pinpoints of white flashing across his vision, but he can still nail a man between the eyes with a well aligned set of iron sights. 

Lily is still alive. She visits with him most mornings ‘round ten, and they sit together and watch the Bighorners graze right up to the front gate. The first week he’d been right upset that she hadn’t recognised him; held her hand and explained who he was so many times that he’d sent himself into a coughing fit and torn something in his chest. After that he didn’t try, just held her big hand between his, her skin warm and coarse, and listened to her talk. Sometimes she looks at him and a spark of recognition flares up all bright and warm, but most times it’s gone as soon as it arrived. No matter.

He’s going to die soon anyway, defeated by his own body and cold in his bed, and he’d rather he didn’t leave sweet big ol’ Lily mourning the loss of her darling Jimmy all over again. She doesn’t deserve to remember all that.


End file.
